


Way the Heart is

by Alliance (Xazz)



Series: Cypress Hall [37]
Category: Flight Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-25 23:32:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14987954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xazz/pseuds/Alliance





	Way the Heart is

This island was unknown to [Sobek](http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=40833558) other than he'd been told by Vrej numerous times not to go there. He went there anyway because the dragons in there could help him. The thought felt sour in his mind that he'd stoop so low to seek the aid of dragons. He already knew his kin would hiss and scorn him for what he was going to do but he didn't care. It was important to him. He didn't want to see Vrej look at him like she had when he'd confessed to her. Sad, pitying, and regretful.

The opening of the Warren yawned open, plunging deep into the earth. A soft, cool, breeze filtered out of the cavernous opening and made some if the hair around his face shift. He couldn't see very far, only as far as the first bend in the tunnels. His tail tip twitched nervously before he went down into the depths.

It grew dark faster than he expected and Sobek was plunged into darkness. At least for a moment. He raised a hand and fire came up and licked across his fingers and claws. The flame was only that of a candle but it was more than enough to see by. The tunnel was dug by something other than dragon claws but he wasn't quite sure what and thought it better not to wonder too deeply. He probably didn't want to know if it made tunnels large enough for Imperials to walk through with space both above and on either side.

He had no idea where he was going. He just slithered along the ground following the left wall. It took him some time but eventually, he came to part of the tunnels with doors in the side. Metal things bolted into the earth with straps across it. What on earth did they keep inside that they needed metal doors. It didn't occur to Sobek that the doors might be used to keep something out as well.

He held his breath when one of the doors opened and a humi shaped imperial stepped out. They were very tall and fit with their blonde hair up in a messy bun at the top of their head. Sobek didn't move as if doing so would make him not see a serthis in their lair. The [Imperial](http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=38320671) looked up and down the tunnel briefly and then at him. Faster than he expected the imperial jumped him and shoved him hard against the soft wall. “And now what is a thing like you doing in the Warren? You're a long way from the Serpent Fangs,” he said, his green eyes starting to glow. He used his wings to further corner Sobek against the wall, his hands gripping Sobek’ wrists so hard he lost control of the fire on his hand and they were plunged into darkness.

“Pleassse, I'm not tribal,” he stammered, half hissing it. “Friend of Vrej.”

The glowing eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here? Beastclan aren’t welcome in the Warren.”

“Ssseek help.”

“With what?”

“Dra-gonsss good withs magic. Better than ssserthis.”

“This is true. You want magical help? With what?”

He was glad it was dark. Sobek felt his face heat up in embarrassment and not a little humiliation for what he was going to say. “Want to not be beassstclan.”

The eyes unnarrowed. “What’s your name?”

He focused on not letting his accent get in the way of his name. Vrej always said he said his name so cute with his hissing and he knew that wouldn’t be good here. “Sobek,” he didn’t hiss out the end only by biting his own tongue.

“You want to get rid of that tail of yours, is that it?”

“Yesss.”

He leaned back away from Sobek a bit, looking down at him with cool eyes. Then he let go of one of Sobek’ wrists and snapped his fingers. Several lamps up and down the tunnel immediately turned on, bathing them in a soft amber light. “Who were you looking for here?”

“Hear thingsss when dra-gonsss visssit Vrej for healing. They sssay Ssavathhhün is a powerful witch.”

“She hates beastclan. You’re lucky I found you first or she’d have her mate gobble you right up.” Sobek gulped. “I think something out. Do you really wanna be humi?” Sobek nodded. “Why?” Sobek didn’t answer. They squeezed the wrist they were still holding and Sobek felt his bones grind, making him grimace in pain. “Why?” he said again.

If he said the pain would stop. “Love Vrej,” he blurted out.

He was surprised by the Imperials honest surprise and then almost sympathy. “Heh. Ladies make you do stupid things, I get that. Come with me,” he dragged Sobek back to the door he’d come out of. Sobek was shoved inside. “Stay here, don’t wander. I’ll be back.”

“Where?” Sobek asked.

“Just wait,” he said and before Sobek could stop him he closed the metal door and he heard it lock. He tried the door but while the handle worked it was barred from the outside by the straps he’d seen.

Furious he looked around and found he was in what looked like this Imperial’s living quarters. It was one large room sectioned off by folding screens with a big bed in the corner. Sobek slithered over to the rug and curled up on it. He didn’t want to touch anything or get into any trouble and he knew better than to get nosy with a dragon’s things. Even Vrej, for all that she allowed Sobek and the rest free reign over her home there were certain places and things that if they touched she’d get very angry and scold you or drag you away from where you weren’t supposed to be. The Imperial was bigger and stronger than Vrej. He didn’t want to make a mistake.

He waited a while. He wasn’t sure how long. Then he heard the door unlock and he turned and looked as the door opened. The blonde humi Imperial stepped through the door and held it open for a woman with deep red hair. He sunk down a bit in his coils defensively. “Sobek, this is the witch Astra, she’s going to help you.” He eyed the two of them distrustfully.

“I’ve not heard of you,” Sobek said as she walked over to him. He could tell by her wings and the big gem in the middle of her forehead that she was a Skydancer and that didn’t put him at ease.

“Good,” [Astra](http://flightrising.com/main.php?dragon=38320673) said. The Imperial stood to the side, arms folded, watching to make sure Sobek didn’t do anything. “I think we can help each other, Sobek.”

“How’sss thhhat?”

“I need someone dead-

“No.”

She giggled, “Oh, I wasn’t expecting you to kill them. I want them weak. I know there are several serthis in Vrej’s colony who specialize in synthesizing antivenom for various serthis types. And that’s great, just great but I have no use for antivenom. I will do the ritual with you to change you into a humi, teach you to walk even, in return, I want you to make me a poison that will weaken but not kill someone until the time comes that they are to die. Is that something you can do?”

Sobek was wary of this Astra. “What if I sssay no?”

“Well I’ll throw you out and you can wander the Warren and hope you find Savathün in an agreeable mood. I’m sure my brother has told you she isn’t the biggest fan of beastclan, hmm?” she asked and brushed some of her long hair out of her face. He nodded. “But know that she isn’t the only thing in the Warren you have to be worried about. Do we have a deal?”

Sobek was hesitant. Astra standing above him, looking down onto him, made him nervous. But he’d come here looking for help and knew more than any dragons just didn’t do something for free unless it benefitted them. If he wanted her help he’d have to pay. And all he had to do was make a poison. He was capable of doing that. All serthis knew how to make poison from their venom or the venom of their kin to apply to arrow or blades or claws. He could make a poison to weaken. “I will do it,” he nodded.

“Excellent,” and she clapped her hands together, delighted. “You can stay here and Aten and I will prepare the ritual. It will take some time but we should be able to start it today.”

“Very well.”

“Aten will retrieve you when the times comes, now behave,” she said nicely with a smile. He nodded a little and the siblings left the room.

Once they were gone Sobek realized his heart was pounding and he was glad they were gone. Then he realized he was once more alone in a dragon’s abode. He hunkered down in his coils and just tried to be small. As time passed he got bored and started humming to himself. A long time passed and he ended up dozing curled up in his coils to protect the more fragile part of his upper body. He roused himself when the door opened and the same blonde Imperial came in.

“It’s time, get up,” Aten said gruffly.

Sobek yawned but did get up and only sort of raised himself up as he slithered over to Aten. Aten motioned for him to leave the room and he waited in the hallway outside while Aten locked his door. “Why do you have metal doorsss?” he asked. “You are dra-gonsss, what could hurt you?”

Aten gave him a look. “Plenty, especially in the Warren,” and that was all he said. Sobek was too intimidated to ask more questions.

They walked down the tunnel to another tunnel and that led deep into the earth where it was cold and the only light came from an orb Aten carried in his hand that glowed with low lamplight. Finally, they came to another metal door Aten decided was the one they needed and he opened it. It was low light inside but he could see what looked like a bed in the corner of the room and an altar. Sobek was nervous as Aten locked the door behind them and walked over to Astra who was sitting on a stool reading a tome was thick as Sobek’ fist. She pushed her hair out of her face which was pensive in concentration. She looked up when Aten approached and smiled at him then her bright, pale, green eyes looked behind him and saw Sobek.

“No need to be afraid, Sobek,” and she beckoned to him with a finger. Sobek slowly slithered over to her. “This is where I’ll perform the ritual. If you were a dragon you could just do it but most need help the first time, thus the ritual. I’ve prepared everything. I’m sure you want to get this over with so you can go show Vrej.” Sobek flushed a little but Astra just kept talking. “So we’ll begin now. Remove your clothes.”

“W-what?” he stammered. The idea of being so vulnerable around these strangers was not a pleasant one.

“You’re going to grow and change and it could destroy them. You need to remove them or risk losing them and you’ll never be as large as Aten or me so unless you want to learn to walk in a sack you have to get rid of them,” Astra said.

Sobek frowned but looked down and started undoing the ties that held his clothes to his frame. They tied up the sides and attached to an apron that wrapped around where his flesh met scales. There was also a fair amount of straps and several jarred talismans that were tucked under his clothes. His first set of teeth. The eye of his first kill from a tribal merging. A lock of Vrej’s hair woven into a circular braid. Last was his hair tie, an ornate ribbon Vrej had made for him. She made all the serthis who were part of her colony a hair tie to welcome them to her colony so they knew they were welcome, wanted, and safe under her eye. He hated leaving it with his tunic and bracelets and the rest of his clothes but he did so he was just there, naked, in front of the two humi shaped dragons.

Astra uncrossed her legs and got to her feet elegantly. “This part of you will mostly stay the same,” she said indicating the upper fleshy part of him. “But the rest will change, dramatically. Come over here,” she motioned to the altar. He followed her and as she went to stand in front of it she pulled her hair back and away from her face and with a complex hand motion it braided itself. Sobek’s eyes widened. He’d never seen magic used like that. Most magic was practical, or in Vrej’s case to heal. He’d never seen such a casual display of magic to just _braid_ hair. “Be here,” she pointed to right in front of her and he slithered over.

The ritual was strange. She smeared ochre on his face and throat and used a paste to paint sigils across his chest. Then she made him sit in the middle of a circle of the same paste and ochre. He blinked in surprise as a great wind kicked up to the motion of her arms and he was blasted with magic. Invisible signs that had been painted into the floor flared into life and blazed with such a blinding light Sobek had to look away and close his eyes. Then the light dimmed.

“Alright, all done,” she said.

Sobek looked down at himself. “It didn’t work,” he accused her. “I’m ssstill ssserthisss.”

To the side, Aten gave a cough of a laugh. “Do you even know what goes into a dragon’s transformation?” Astra asked him with a sly smile.

“No?”

“It isn’t instant. It takes times. Hours, days even. If Aten wants to look how he was born it takes him three days because he has to become so large. For you it will be less,” she approached him and wiped the ochre off his face with a damp rag and gave it to him to clear up his chest. While he did she went back to the altar and brought back a glass of slightly yellow, completely opaque, liquid. “Drink.”

“What isss it?” he asked.

“It will make you sleep until I give you something to make you wake.”

“That ssseemsss dangerousss.”

“Or you can go through the pain of the change without it. Makes no difference to me.”

She pulled the drink away but Sobek grabbed it. He didn’t want to be in pain. Vrej never mentioned that changing shape was painful. He took a sip and it tasted as bitter as he expected it to taste. Astra laughed when his face twisted in disgust. With a grimace, he chugged the entire thing, able to open his throat and not taste it. “Now what?” he asked, holding the cup anxiously.

Astra just beckoned and led him over to the bed. “Make yourself comfortable. The potion will take effect shortly and you don’t want to be caught unaware.”

Cautiously Sobek crawled into the nest of a bed. He was very aware of Astra and Aten watching him and it made him nervous. He stared at the both of them wondering if they’d say anything to him but Astra just stood there, watching him. He started to feel a horrible pain in his pelvis when he blacked out.

—

[Vrej](http://flightrising.com/main.php?p=lair&id=332919&tab=dragon&did=40398878) was with the triplets weeding one of her herb gardens. They always asked why she just didn’t use her magic to do it and Vrej always gave the same answer. Sometimes work was worth doing hard and magic could cheapen the connection you felt to hard work. The garter serthis didn’t always agree but they didn’t question her too much. To those without magic, it was an instant fix to a problem. Vrej knew it could be but sometimes just doing things with your hands was good too.

“Vrej,” she glanced up. One of the guards was on the other side of the wire fence. Guard was a loose term. Mostly they made sure the rest of the Hall didn’t bother her colony too much and kept the toridaes away. Or that had been Sobek’ job. She hadn’t seen him in days and it worried her. She knew she’d broken his heart but she thought he was stronger than to mope around for days or just leave without saying anything. Vrej knew serthis were too proud to always take responsibilities for things they might have made a mistake about so it wasn’t out of character she guessed.

“Yes, Hari?” she asked, wiping her brow and getting a bit of dirt across her sweaty face.

“You need to sseeees thisss,” he said.

“What? Something bad?” she asked even as she pushed off her knees.

“I don’t know,” he said nervously.

“Hmm.” She grabbed the bag from a post where she hung her pearl when out in the garden and followed Hari out of the garden to the front of her home. Several serthis were gathered around looking at something and looking at it curiously. “What’s going on here, hmm?” she asked and the serthis all looked back at her, almost guiltily to having been caught out like this. They moved aside so she could walk forward and see what they were looking at.

There was a humi sitting on the steps of her porch. But a humi like she’d never seen. They had no wings, no horns, no frills or tail. Their feet were the same and slightly digitigrade but there were no distinguishing features about them. They looked almost like one of her serthis only with legs. She stared at them in confusion with their shaded red hair and blood red eyes that stared back at her, almost like they were afraid. It took her an uncomfortable amount of time to realize what she was looking at. “Sobek?” she asked. He nodded but was too nervous to talk. “Well… hmm— come inside. The rest of you should probably go back to what you were doing,” she added and climbed the stairs of her porch. As she did she grabbed Sobek’ hand and helped him up. “Stop being so nosy and making him uncomfortable. Really,” she scolded them and the other serthis quickly dispersed.

Vrej led Sobek inside and closed the door. He walked just fine and she wasn’t used to seeing a humi without a swaying tail or mindful of their wings so they didn’t accidentally bang them on a threshold or something. He turned to her and said nothing, just licked his lips nervously and had his hands in the pockets of his pants. Thank the Plaguebringer he was wearing pants.

“Sobek, what’s this?” she asked him. She had a feeling she knew but she wanted him to tell her. Sobek seemed too nervous to say anything. She sighed a little. “Did you do this because of what I said?”

“Yes,” he said.

She looked away with a deeper sigh and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “This wasn’t I expected you to do,” she admitted. “ _How_? You can do minor magic but transformations?”

“Someone helped me.” She realized that he didn’t have a hissing accent now. He didn’t hold his Ss and Ts longer or work his mouth around round sounds. She wasn’t sure she liked it.

“Who?” she pressed.

“One of the witches in the Warren-

“You went to a Stitcher?” Vrej demanded, eyes flaring. Sobek shrunk away from her some. “Sobek that was dangerous and stupid and totally irresponsible! The colony relies on you, _I_ rely on you. What if they’d hurt you? What if they’d killed you?” her anger was bred from worry.

“I had to try,” he said softly. “For you.”

“You didn’t do this for me. You did it for yourself,” Vrej snapped.

“Vrej-

“I know you were upset but to do this?” she motioned to his humi body but it still looked wrong and strange to her eyes. No tail, no wings, no defining features other than normal serthis pointed ears and his long red hair. And he’d gone to the Warren and knew he’d made some sort of deal with one of the Stitchers. She was so disappointed in him. “I didn’t want this for you.”

“You’re right. I did it for myself. So you don’t look at me and see me as lesser.”

“Sobek, I’ve never seen you as lesser,” she said softly.

“But you wouldn’t give me a chance because I was serthis. Well now I’m not,” he looked down at himself, taking his hands out of pockets and used them to indicate his new form. “I’m not anything. I am just Sobek.” He stepped over to her and grabbed one of her hands. “I’m just me and I love you and I did this because I thought you’d like me better this way,” he said, eyes wide. He brushed some of her hair back and behind her ear.

She stepped back taking her hand from his. “You have these ideas of what I want, Sobek,” she said. “And your heart is in the right place I guess but I didn’t tell you to do this. I didn’t ask you to do this. I still don’t love you. I like you just fine, you’re a good protector of the Fangs but this… you went to the Stitchers. They’re about as close to evil as I can imagine, especially that Savathün and Oryx. I warn everyone not to go there for a reason because it’s dangerous and I worry about you all. But this… this is a betrayal. And now you’re like this,” she looked him up and down. “I have no room in my heart for someone who’d do something so reckless and put themselves in so much danger to go to the Warren. Before, maybe, but now?” she frowned and he looked just as heartbroken as the last time they’d spoken. “I don’t know if I can trust you now. The Stitchers deal in trades and favors. I don’t know what they wanted from you but it probably isn’t good,” he looked down at his feet meaning she was right.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just… Please don’t hate me.’

“I don’t hate you, Sobek but I don’t trust you.”

“Can I fix it?” he asked, his eyes pleading and if she knew him less she thought he might start crying. But Sobek was too hard and stoic to cry in front of anyone if he even cried at all.

“You can try,” she said.

He sighed. “Alright,” he said softly. “Alright,” he said to himself again bobbing his head in a sort of nod. “Well, I’m just… gonna go then,” his voice was thick.

“Alright,” she said gently. “The Fangs is still your home. You don’t have to leave it.”

“I know,” he said, looking at the wooden floor. “I’ll see you later,” and he left.

When he was gone Vrej fell into her chair and covered her face with both hands. She knew Sobek wouldn’t cry because he’d done something reckless that had changed his life and their relationship in a not so great way so she did it for him.


End file.
